So you fly a lot, as I do, and have successfully navigated eleven countries, all fifty states and the realization that "just because it's free does not mean I'm hungry", saving your already time-zone interrupted, altitudally exposed and frequent flier seat-restricted digestive tract from thousands of roasted peanuts, cheesy goldfish and unidentifiable trice-heated meals.

But let's say that your mission, now evolved past "how to maintain a vegetarian diet outside of the utopia of your kitchen pantry" or better still; "how to view a four hour hiatus from food less like a death sentence and more like a life insurance policy", has extended from just your personal health and out into the community's as well. Most everyone whom nurtures themselves to health via raw foods progresses into environmentalism eventually. Environmentalism being the next obvious expression of compassion energy, which conveniently is also exemplified by the simple act of refusing single-serving pretzels, styrofoam contained coffee and creamers each in their own miniature peel-away plastic packaging.

When one considers the cost to our health and our family's future, "free" becomes quite the unappetizing value.

But environmentalist, health advocate or pure renegade would agree that while refusing cola is unanimously beneficent, abstaining from water, that elixir of life itself, especially in the dehydrating confines of the economy-class cabin, is not recommendable for any business commuter, family vacationer, or globe trotter at all.

For short duration lift offs, a reusable water bottle (or two) works wonders. So long as it is as empty of liquid as your backpack is empty of lighters, jack knives and still-illegal medicinal herbs through airport security.

Once safely past the metal detectors and sniffer dogs, one can immediately fill the reusable - preferably glass - container at the nearest fountain and save themselves a travel store five-spot with each subsequent foresight.

If hydrating the 1/2 hour before boarding and packing in two additional fountain filled containers still does not satisfy the fluid-ravenous flyer or twelve hour transAtlantic traveler, there is yet one more weapon the intelligent transient will pack. For while flight attendants are trained to offer multitudes of two-swig bottles when additional drinking water is requested, they have an invaluable and apparently inexhaustible artillery of piped hot water available to the coffee-drinking/movie-viewing counterculture of the alcohol-consumeing/sleep-seeking mainstream. And with one reusable, insulated tea mug, the real system breakers and relentless idealists can refill en route as many times as desired, asking for a tea bag or ice as preferred, remaining hydrated and all the while still garbage-free.

Let not the deep love of your environment prevent you from exploring your environment. Nor permit the powerful ideals which should be shared with the world to waver when exploring the world. The traveler can utilize their passion for adventure to navigate seat 26A as well as exotic lands to foster a curious mind, a cleaner conscience and keep the spirit free - the way it is meant to be.

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"That which first connects man with the surrounding Universe is the power of reflective contemplation. Whereas desire seizes at once its object, reflection removes it to a distance and renders it inalienably her own by saving it from the greed of passion."

- Schiller (Letters On the Estetic Education of Man)

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I'm a little girl with no shoes on her feet. Hugging trees in the rain to hear their heart beat.

Five months in LA because I found something to love. Five months in LA because I found someone to love. Five months in LA is a grand commitment for me, proving my devotion to love, love .... love like a fire. Devouring brittle landscapes to fuel more me, to birth a new me. Insatiable and driven ... my love like a fire.

Can leave a soul scorched without the rains.

Just one Michigan nite, washes five months beneath bare feet. Hugging trees in the rain to hear their heart beat.

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This is your room, but I am in it. This is your bed, but I am in it. And somehow I expect this must be your moon, but through the telescope or through the window, I am in that, too.

The plants on the sill - I can name them. The colored glass on the shelf - I recognize it as once ours. The stories we relate, after six years of separation, are memories from a time we were children and in love.

Absinthe fireflies keep the mountain on the lucid side. Roadside phlox keeps the cave crickets paralyzed. The reason I loved you is why I will always love you. The moon dashes out of site, humid hillbilly paradise.

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